Ivana and Donald . . . Madonna and Warren . . . Where does gossip come from? How much is true? And why does America love it?

There she was, blond and bedizened and bravely unbowed, pictured on the front page of the newspaper to which she had confided her most private conversations. No, not Ivana Trump. The woman standing next to her, the one commanding equal attention in that come-to-tell-all photo: syndicated gossip columnist Liz Smith of the New York Daily News, the shoulder La Trump chose to cry on when she wanted to tell the whole world what she thought of the man who had left her. They stood side by side, equals and friends and newsmakers, the aspirant to a jumbo settlement and the journalist...